


Mint Chip & Vodka

by FelOllie



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Uprising, Roy Harper/Felicity Smoak Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 17:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3298700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelOllie/pseuds/FelOllie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, when Oliver comes back into the lair alone, Roy knows. The look on his mentor's face is enough, more than. It's never going to be easy, he thinks, this emotional roller coaster Oliver and Felicity are chained into. It might never stop, might never be simple, but he thinks he knows what to do to make the ride a little less dizzyingly painful, at least for tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mint Chip & Vodka

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea, guys, I just have a lot of emotions about this friendship.

She's a mess when he finds her.

Not outwardly, of course, but he knows the depth of it. He knows the canyon she shoves it into, the hollow space beneath her breast she forces the pain to live in.

No, Felicity wears her wounds on the inside; hangs them like canvases on the walls of her heart. You can't see it, the bottomless well of everything she tries to hide, but you know it's there. Like a riptide, an undercurrent, pain lives in waves beneath the surface. The calm veneer she affects when eyes are on her is just that – a veneer. It's false bravado, a colorful mask, artificial sunlight. 

Roy has never been fooled by Felicity's myriad of masks, similar and yet so astonishingly different from the ones the team wears into the field. Rather than using her masks to hide who she is, to obscure her identity, Felicity uses them to pretend.

To pretend it doesn't hurt, that the wounds are shallow and superficial, not the to-the-bone injuries they truly are. Felicity dons her masks in layers, one over another; anything to keep it all in, to stop her team from seeing the truth.

And still, Roy has always seen through them. Maybe it's because he knows how it feels to want to hide, how much more it hurts to keep it to yourself, but he doesn't want to let her do it this time. She lived in her masks while Oliver was gone – _dead_ – and Roy can't bear to see her live through that again.

So, when Oliver comes back into the lair alone, Roy knows. The look on his mentor's face is enough, more than. It's never going to be easy, he thinks, this emotional roller coaster Oliver and Felicity are chained into. It might never stop, might never be simple, but he thinks he knows what to do to make the ride a little less dizzyingly painful, at least for tonight.

It's not the first time he's been to her apartment, not by a long shot, but it is the first time he's come unannounced. He doesn't think she'll mind, not with what he's got tucked away in a paper bag beneath his arm, but he hopes the whole way to her place that he's not wrong.

Felicity is pink cheeked but red-eyed when she swings the door open, her battle mask slipping into mild but pleasant confusion when she sees it's Roy and not Oliver knocking on her door at nearly one o'clock in the morning. When she tries to smile it's watery, but Roy doesn't care. She can smile through tears if that's what she needs, or she can sob through a laugh to make herself feel better. Whatever she needs right now is whatever she needs, and Roy is just there to hold her hand if she wants it.

“I thought you could use some company.” he explains from the porch, brandishing his cargo with a quirked brow and a lazy grin.

She waves him in without a word, heads right back to the spot on her sofa she had apparently vacated. Roy can't help but notice how small she looks, tucked into herself like that. Her knees are up to her chest, chin resting between while her fingers fidget with the warm looking fabric of her pajama pants. It's obvious she's exhausted, though it's hard to tell if it's more emotional or physical. 

“Did he send you?” she asks, whisper soft but edged with barbed-wire. 

Roy tosses his jacket over the back of a nearby chair before plopping down beside her, his paper bag of booty on his lap. “He doesn't know I'm here.”

She side-eyes him warily, weighing his word. “I don't want to talk about it.” she tells him after a long beat of silence.

Roy shrugs. He unrolls the bag, lifts out the tub of ice cream. “Mint chip, right?”

Felicity laughs, a bright bark that sounds like he startled it out of her. 

“Spoons?”

“You know where they are.”

He's back in less than a minute, two spoons and two rocks glasses in tow. “Just in case.” he grins when she eyeballs the glassware.

“In case?”

Roy digs back into the paper bag, produces a bottle of chocolate flavored vodka and hands it to her. “In case.”

She laughs again but it doesn't sound like it hurts this time. He pours them each a few fingers, hands her a spoon and tucks his feet up under him on the cushion beside her hip. There's something she wants to say, he can feel it, but he lets her get around to it on her own time.

They're halfway through the carton and nearly as far into the bottle when she finally seems to find her voice again.

“You didn't have to come.” 

It comes out cracked and splintered, but warm and blurry around the consonants. He thinks bringing the vodka was a good choice.

“I'm not here because I have to be, Felicity.” Roy tells her softly, honestly. “I'm here because I want to be. It's been a tough few weeks and we could both use the company. Besides,” he smirks, nudges her with his knee against hers, “there are worse things in the world than spending a few hours with a gorgeous blonde.”

Felicity rolls her eyes but she's smiling, laughter trickling out like she doesn't even notice, and it echoes around the room, chases away the darkness that had been creeping in around the edges. 

By the time the bottle is empty Felicity is anything but, her eyes sparkling with laughter instead of tears, and Roy will definitely count that as a win.


End file.
